


it hurts to become

by scarsimp



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Bittersweet, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, This is about delayed trauma reactions, Trauma, also hey, crying happens because hey my entire family is dead, i said so, it fits, nb scar because, that, the focus is on scar miles is simply there to comfort him, u kno when everything finally hits after things settle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarsimp/pseuds/scarsimp
Summary: (wrath lingers in his chest like a lead weight, and he lives his life in a blur of alchemy and hazed pain. it matters not if his hair is too short or shoulders too broad; nothing matters anymore.)years later he sits and brushes his hair, long now, and it aches.
Relationships: Miles/Scar (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	it hurts to become

**Author's Note:**

> CATHARSIS LET SCAR HAVE IT,
> 
> also nb scar bc not all nb people are androgynous or femme thank u and good night

When he was young he simply… was. He existed not as a man, or a boy, he was simply a child. Skipping across sandstone and hiding under the covers during a rare storm— sneaking into the kitchen on the rare nights their mother was home to skitter away with sweets. Sharing with his brother, their face and fingers sticky from sugar. If she caught them (she always did, the same exasperated smile on her face. Sometimes he caught himself smiling at Mei, with what he can pretend is the same feeling. He was always told he looked like her.) 

It was different, as he aged. Not bad, never truly bad, simply different. A weight on his chest and shoulders as they broadened, the blooming, vivid joy of his hair brushing his shoulders and curling round and round. Sitting still and patient as his brother hemmed and hawed over clothing and loose shirts and shawls. He was simply him. Until suddenly it wasn't different, until suddenly he was no longer just him. Until— it was bad, horrible, evil.  _ Evil.  _ (Bloody mud and vacant eyes and nightmares of his mother's broken smile, his brother clutching him against his chest as if he was a child again; as if he was small enough to fit again. Everything was just  _ different _ until the  _ war. _ )

After that is a blur of hazy pain and distant screams. Of searching, for what, for  _ what? _ Looking anywhere for an answer, a reason, an excuse. All he sees is happy, pale smiles and blonde hair and the world breathes around him; a gasp, a noise of pain and acceptance. It exhales and the air tastes and smells of iron and vinegar. The blood of his bitten lip was tangy in his mouth and it made him nauseous.

All he knows and carries with him is a wrath nurtured in his chest. Something weighed, making him heavy with its intensity. Ropey scar tissues curls around  _ his _ arm (round and round and round) and when he looks too closely the nails are shaped differently from his other hand. Alchemy crackles like bone when he bends the weapon— what could it be but a weapon? What could  _ he _ be but a weapon?— and it pulses like a heart. 

He cut his hair and hunched his shoulders, did everything he didn't want to do. Kept it buzzed down so he wouldn't remember the way his mother would card her hand through it, twirling the curls. Braided a little girl’s hair so she wouldn’t strain her shoulders trying, wondered if his mother would be proud that he remembered how to tie the twists so well after all the sandy years. Mei's hair is long and dark and straight, nothing like his, or hers, or theirs. (His own hair was something chaotic, long. Curls tight and thick, bright white strands always a mess no matter how much his brother tried to tame it.)

Something changed when the war finally, gracelessly ended. It had never truly stopped with Ishval, had simply grown quietly, secretly. A tumor of lies and disgust and the slippery sort of betrayal that made you feel nothing but pity. It was violent and stomach churning and then it was over. Anticlimactic, almost. Ironic. 

He tried not to think about it much.

The air in his, Miles',  _ their _ home was quiet and warm. The sky was bright blue against pale yellow sand and dusty cacti, and he was barely half-awake at most. Miles had stumbled off to feed his caffeine addiction, and that left him bleary eyed and reluctant to move from his pile of blankets. His willpower was even more damaged by the vaguely nightmarish dreams he had through the night. 

(Blurred red and black and bright, blue irises. Winding, neverending tunnels and the same golden haired man at the and. A throne of pipes and the mockery of subjects, their candy eyes nothing like his or his brethren's.)

He grit his teeth and ignored the way his arm throbbed, shivering at the memories before banishing them with a small shake of his head. Sitting up was done with a significant amount of reluctance, and a yawn. 

Hair fell into his eyes and he rolled them, finally swinging his feet over the edge of the bed and moving towards their shared vanity. It had a hodge podge of wide toothed combs and oils and creams, and one futilely broken and defeated brush from the time he let Mei brush his hair. The mirror was balanced neatly, (Miles' doing— he was too impatient for most detail work, he'd come to learn.) and he sat down in front of him with a sigh, reaching for a band of fabric for his hair. 

He combed through the mess with his fingers, careful not to tug the strand knots. And then a single, bare glance in the mirror and he blinked, seeing someone else in the reflection for a moment. For but a moment he could’ve sworn it was his mother, his brother, the wayward father he had never met, anyone but himself. Everyone who was gone. 

The grief cut like a knife through his chest.

It seared, ached, burned, and he made a small noise at just how suddenly it appeared. Something was gnawing at his insides and he cupped a trembling palm over his mouth, gritting his teeth and choking on the sob that came from nowhere and everywhere. It was a raw pain inside of him that curdled his blood like milk, and he wondered faintly if it would kill him. 

He glanced back up at the mirror, and saw only himself. His hair was fluffed around his face, a mockery of how his mother wore it— hers was always silky smooth, it felt like silk and he had been jealous for as long as he could remember. People insisted he looked just like her and he wished they were right. 

He could feel tears on his face but had no idea when he started crying, turning away from the mirror, noises muffled by the palm suffocating him and vision blurred into nothing. They were hot and thick on his cheeks and he choked again, staring at the dresser top in front of him like it held something holy. The water pooled like diamonds on the stained wood, well loved through the years and faded in places, and he finally squeezed his eyes shut.

It was a quiet sort of pain, and he bent to press his forehead against cold wood— wishing more than anything that it was warm skin, or hair, or sand, or stone. Wishing he was in a childhood home long broken and decayed, echoes of a tarnished past haunting him like a ghost. He gasped raggedly, the sound wet in the air, and did nothing to wipe his face. 

He missed, and ached, and some wound in him had been torn open and ripped apart. He faintly heard the creak of old hinges across the room and pressed his head harder against the dresser, as if the stars scattering across his eyelids would hide him from the world. He  _ ached _ . He would surely drown under the weight of everything, so sudden and apparently hollow in its absence, a world destroyed and rebuilt and yet gone all the same, it was going to—

"Habibi?" 

He didn't move, but he heard Miles' feet as he moved closer and tried to muffle himself. It worked as poorly as he expected it too. 

"Can I touch you?" A brusque shrug. His throat had swollen shut and speech was impossible. His eyes burnt even as they kept watering. "Alright," a quiet scuffle, fabric rustling and an arm was winding around his shoulders. It was a steady weight, warmer than his own hands were. "We're gonna go sit on the bed, okay?" 

Another shrug, but he moved with Miles as the other urged him to stand. His legs were shockingly weak— he  _ hated _ being weak, hated having to be rescued, it made him feel ridiculous. His knees shook anyway and there was nothing to stop it or the way his insides were slowly trembling apart. Miles' hands were gentle as they moved, warm brands against his sides. The bed was still unmade from the scarcely twenty minutes he had been out of it. Still warm, in spots.

Miles sat besides him and he noticed that the man hadn't even pulled his hair back yet, the tight coils a halo of white around his head. Still sleep haggard and yet somehow steady as a rock anyway, calm and patient in a way he had never been. 

"What happened?" Miles asked him and he realized that he didn't even know, something like embarrassment curling around his neck. He shook his head faintly, before realizing that he should probably answer the other. 

"I don't know why I'm crying?" He managed, and it sounded ridiculous even to him. He snorted, scrubbing a hand roughly over his wet cheeks and eyeing Miles besides him. He didn't know what he expected, but the concerned look he received wasn't it. "I don't know why I'm crying." 

"We can worry about that later," Miles said, voice quiet and soothing in a way he had heard, of course, but never directed at him. "Right now I think the best thing is for you to quit crying when you're ready."  _ When you're ready. _ It echoed faintly in his head and he frowned. 

"What do you mean?" He winced faintly at how wet his voice sounded, thick. Miles wrapped an arm back around him, this time resting his head on a tattooed shoulder. 

"You have a lot to cry for, really." A finger traced the dark inking of the looping alchemy across his forearm. "You don't have to pretend it's all okay when it's not—" he frowned, but Miles' continued before he could speak. "even when you don't realize you're pretending." 

"I hate it," he managed weakly.

"I know," Miles' voice was soothing, and a hand moved to stroke across his face. "None of this should have ever happened, habibi." He couldn't quite stop himself from snorting, something suddenly and hysterically funny about the entire situation. 

"Not— not that," he managed, sniffling. "I hate crying. It always makes my head hurt." He gestured towards the thick scar forever across his brow, lowering his head faintly when Miles' moved his hand to instead stroke a thumb across the ridge of his brow. 

Miles made a small sound, quietly laughing— the noise was like a balm and something loosened faintly in his chest. Still tight, still burning hot in his sternum, but the smallest bit quieter. "That's a fair reason to hate it too," Miles said, turning away for a moment to grab frantically for the handkerchief he kept on his bedside table. "I'm always exhausted, any time I cry. It's hard on you." 

He worried his bottom lip, nodded with a heavy sigh, and took the cloth Miles had held out to him as he had spoken. His face hurt, and he was congested, and he really fucking hated crying sometimes. "I—" start, stop, he tried to make sense of himself. "I miss them." Miles had fallen silent and he found himself continuing. "It's like I didn't realize they were gone until now," he scrubbed at his eyes, "that doesn't make sense."

"Yes, it does." He looked at Miles with a frown, confused. "We've been through hell these past few years, you especially; and then all of a sudden, it stops? It took me a long time to realize no one was gonna burst through my window, you know that." He nodded, looking back on the nights they had sat up together through the night, paranoia a close friend. "This is like that. There's nothing wrong with it, and I especially don't think so." 

He sat there, fiddling with the frayed edges of the handkerchief. "I miss them." He stared down at the white fabric, "People always told me I looked like my mother. I wish I did."

Miles tilted his head with a frown. "I've never seen any pictures of her, so I can't say." His face softened, "You look like yourself, though. If that counts at all." 

"Yeah— yeah." He sighed something heavy, nodding and finally picking the square cloth up to use. "People would always confuse me and my brother; they always thought we were twins because I was tall for my age and he was short." 

"Sounds like two other brothers we know pretty well." 

He barked out a laugh at that, the smile curling wide. "I guess it does, huh?" 

The grief lingers like an old friend, bitter in his mouth and throat— but it does not drown him, not yet. There are his brother and his mother waiting, somewhere, but he is here with a small daughter and her panda, and a man who loves him, and it is enough. It will be enough. 


End file.
